


Morning

by MilkshakeKate



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, F/M, Morning Routines, Morning Sex, Shower Sex, Smut, Trust
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-20
Updated: 2016-12-20
Packaged: 2018-09-10 14:59:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8921563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MilkshakeKate/pseuds/MilkshakeKate
Summary: Illya is never late. He has always maintained strict morning routine. Gaby Teller overthrows it.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [edenforest](https://archiveofourown.org/users/edenforest/gifts).



> Merry Christmas, Edenforest! The only request here was: established relationship, domestic fluff, smut, and No Death. How sweet/frightening to have so much freedom! Hope you have a wonderful 2017, and that you'll obtain all the fancy 1963 spinny chairs your heart desires [wink].

Gaby’s bathroom is too small for Illya. No, Gaby’s entire _apartment_ is too small for Illya. The door frames are just slightly too low, the settee just a fraction too shallow. Watching him shrug his way out of a jacket in the shrunken hallway, he wouldn’t look out of place on a carnival stage. Of course, the sheer size of him comes in handy when there is a light bulb to replace, or for reaching into the back of the kitchen cabinets.  

But there are other benefits, too.  

For instance, this morning she showers with the bathroom door wide open. This, before Illya, was unthinkable. Now he pads around her apartment in search of a clean shirt, a tie, and a pair of socks — all of which are rogue and unpaired, since it was last Gaby’s turn to go to the laundrette — and he is something of a perimeter defence. If she wanted, she could unlatch every lock on her front door, leave it thrown open with all her valuables on sight, and she knows that Illya would fill the frame and swing his fists until his feet couldn’t hold him up any longer.  

So when his voice sounds from behind her shower curtain, it is not shock but a warm surge of comfort that wakes Gaby from her daydream.  

“What would you like for dinner tonight?”  

Gaby combs through her wet hair with her fingers, tosses it over her shoulder to rinse. “Whatever you want.”  

“That does not help.”  

“It’s your turn, Illya. You choose.”  

She listens to him rifling around in the bathroom cabinet. The rattle of his aftershave, his shaving creme, his razor. Even over the spray of hot water she catches the hurried swirl of his shaving brush around the lid of the creme, the clatter of it landing on the counter.  

“You sound late,” she says, coy.  

“Yes.”  

“Perhaps if you went to bed earlier—”  

“You,” he grouses, not entirely with ill-feeling, “would not let me get out of bed.”  

Gaby smiles to herself, hums for the memory.  

Illya hums back grimly.  

Turning off the shower, Gaby opens the curtain wide and perches bare on the edge of the bath. She scrunches through her hair, and looks.  

He is no more dressed than last she saw of him, towel low on his hips and hair damp. He has just finished shaving his face and most of his neck, has a little nick under his lip for rushing.  

Illya ignores her staring, still stooping low to look into the mirror he’d hung for her height. With his straight razor he grazes up the curve of his neck to meet his chin with a sharp rasp that makes Gaby’s stomach turn.  

“How do you do that?”  

“Just as you do.” He reaches over his head to pull at his temple, skin taut, and sweeps up a line of stubble he’d missed the first time around. “The inner thigh holds the longest vein in the body. I have seen you hurry over yours like it is nothing.”  

“Mine,” she says, picking up her Lady Gillette from the edge of the bath, “does not look like it belongs in a butcher's shop."

Illya gives her a look. He tilts his jaw with two fingertips and rasps up again, leaving a clean sweep where the creme has been scraped away, and rinses the razor under the tap.  

There is something very watchable about Illya doing this. Like when he brushes his teeth or cleans his ears, it is a strange thing to see him perform so shortly before leaving the apartment to begin his sort of work. Buffing his rough edges and sculpting himself into the immaculate Illya. To watch him wash his face and comb his hair before slipping a knife into his boot or shrug on a leather holster... It is a heady, remarkable thing. It feels like discovering a powerful vulnerability, witnessing these rituals of Russia’s finest. Like he’s revealing a secret he trusts her completely to keep.  

Gaby steps over the edge of the bath and onto the mat. Like that, she is right by his side, gently pressing up against him.  

"Good morning," she says airily, and presses a kiss to the round of his shoulder. Resting her forehead there, she gazes down at the low curve of his back, disappearing under the roll of his towel. There is a light sheen of water there, not yet patted dry since his shower. 

When she turns back, he has already caught her looking. Warily, he says, "Good morning to you."

Gaby watches, and he goes on shaving diligently as if she isn’t there at all. He can tell when she has a game in her. When she intends to distract.  

So he sweeps up the side she’s standing by, lets her listen to the scrape and watch for the trail of smooth skin the razor leaves in its wake.  

“Can I have a go?” she asks.  

He hums at the mirror. “I am late.”  

“But you would let me.”  

Illya does peer down at her then. A crease forms between his brows, and his gaze sweeps from her eyes to her mouth, reading her in increments. She wonders what he might find to dissuade him. What might convince him not to trust her. It has been a long time since she has had to worry about that. But he soon wraps her fingers around the lacquered handle. He watches the expression on her face more than his correction of her grip.  

“Hold my hand on it first,” she tells him.  

Illya nods and holds his chin high, just as he had before. “Be careful.”  

“Oh, I hadn’t thought of that.”  

He rolls his eyes, and then his palm completely engulfs hers on the handle. She has to reach high to meet him where he pulls her. And she lets him guide her, sweeping the blade up until her arm is wholly outstretched. She feels the rasp now, shivering along the handle but insulated by the weight of his hand over hers, tight and controlled.  

“You see? It is not so hard.”  

“No,” Gaby murmurs.  

He holds her gaze, seeming to have forgotten the time. “You want to finish?”  

“Yes.”  

Illya nods once. He releases her hand and positions her squarely in front of him. The curve of her bare back meets the sink, and he plants his hands on either side to lean down within reach.  

Here, she can smell her shampoo on him. Her toothpaste in his mouth, the clean warmth of his still-damp skin. He smiles at her gently, eye to eye, and he raises his chin, exposing his neck and the last stripe of shaving creme, the firm column of his throat.

Gaby takes his chin with her thumb and forefinger, angles him higher. She feels him swallow, but his eyes are soft, and he isn’t watching her quite so sharply.  

So she makes the slowest sweep up to the square of his jaw. Agonisingly slow, the hair so much more coarse than she’d expected, but when he holds his chin up the drag seems to glide a little easier. The creme gathers in a white paste on the blade, dotted with his dark blond stubble, and it’s done.  

She stares at the razor for a while, before Illya gentles it from her hand to run it under the tap.  

“How did I do?”  

Illya rubs his hand over his jaw, down his neck. “Not bad.”  

There are still little traces of white on his cheeks, and they smudge under his fingers. There is a streak under his ear she wants to sweep away with her thumb.  

Illya brings her hands to his face. His cheeks are cool and smooth, hypnotically so, and he lets her trace the shadow of his cheekbones and the line of his jaw at her leisure. She tilts him to look left and right, watching his tendons cast shadows from the join of his collarbones and all the way up to his ears.   

“Not bad,” she remarks, a bit lost. 

Illya returns to gripping the counter, crowding over her.  

She nods at the nick under his lip. “Does it hurt?”  

“No.”  

His eyes rove over her face like two bright blue beams. He refuses to take in any more. So Gaby thumbs over the wound, presses a soft kiss to him there. Without the graze of his stubble it’s like kissing a young Illya, and she thinks in a flash of the life they could have had if they had met any other way. Lived different lives, chosen safer paths. Where they might have been by now if they’d had a chance at being civilians.  

When she pulls back, Illya’s brow furrows and he wipes the blood from her lip. He dabs at its source with the heel of his hand.  

“It’s a shame,” Gaby murmurs. From the corner of her eye, Illya’s hand tightens on the counter beside her naked hip, so she lays a palm flat to his chest to soothe him. She wants those hands on her. The cool push of his fingertips and the banked, spread heat of his broad palms.  

“What is a shame?”  

“I have always liked how it felt on me.”  

Illya swallows.  

She untucks the towel from his hips, opens it up. Illya flattens his brow, glaring dully and completely unsurprised, as she uses the towel only to dab off his excess shaving creme, patting gently under his ear and ruffling the wet hair at the nape of his neck.  

Peering down, Gaby presses herself closer to him, pleased to find he is half hard already. 

“How late can you be?”  

Illya straightens up to his full height. He glances at his wrist. Of course, this is a useless exercise. His watch still lies on her bedside table, just beside the earrings Gaby had worn the night before.  

Gaby strokes up and down his waist to encourage him.

He nods quickly. “I can be late.”  

The towel drops to the floor. “Good,” she says, and pulls him even lower to kiss him, over and over, until he gives in.  

Illya likes to be absolved. This is all Gaby’s doing, and she is a master of excuses. She will soothe the wound at HQ, soften Mr. Waverly’s concerns like butter. And it excites Illya, the prospect of entering the office alongside Gaby, having been with her like this within the same hour. That she hides it so well, but catches his eye so knowingly throughout the day. Perhaps she thinks of him as he does her; flashbacks, touch and taste still fresh in the mind. He hopes so. Before Gaby he had never known that sort of pride, that mutual want. So he sinks into her, slips his arm tight around the small of her back, and he gives in.  

Distantly, far from Illya’s lips spreading over her neck, Gaby hears the click and hum of the shower starting back up. She scoffs, thumps his chest lightly. How like him, anticipating exertion enough to make his first shower a waste and refusing to condone it.  

Illya crouches a little and lifts her up, palms squeezing and patting at her until she wraps around his waist. He smiles under her chastising kisses, for her fingernails dipping into his shoulders, pushing at him. He is so smug like this, proving he can hold her. 

He takes her with him, kicking aside the dropped towel and stepping over the edge of the bath. She feels his arousal graze up along the underside of her thigh and Gaby, with the fresh mist of the cool water, shivers deep and clutches him closer. _All_ of this was unthinkable before Illya. 

Bracing one hand on the tiles, Illya jolts her high up his waist, dropping his head to look between them. The water hits Gaby’s skin in a warming stream, trickling down. Lightheaded, she wraps her thighs tighter, clings on. A hand combs through her wet hair, and she closes her eyes to his kiss as he turns, tips her back a little and--  

The tiles strike a shock of chill down her back.  

“Ah!” Gaby squeaks and jumps against his chest.

“Sorry."

Under her glare he apologises again in earnest, warming her back with both palms flat to her skin to thaw her through.

It's hard to scold him for it. His cheeks are flushed and shining in the humidity, his hair heavy and darker blond when wet. He looks boyish, untidy. Gaby scratches through his hair instead and he hums, kisses her with a new breathlessness that brings a shiver stronger than the tiles had. So she pulls his hand to her breast, her nipples peaking tight for just his sigh over her ear, just to show him.  

“Gaby,” he breathes.  

“Hm?" 

He slips a hand between them, rolling precise and steady in a way the pattering water denies her. Firm, where everything else shakes and wavers. Strong where she’s growing weak. Gaby sighs, lets her whole weight relax in his hold. 

He gives her a questioning look, and Gaby nods. They can communicate like this, now. In the field, and at home. He tips her slower this time, curling the top of her shoulders to meet the icy tiles, the top of her spine, missing the small of her back only because she is arching into him, tugging him in with the lock of her legs.  

Illya’s touch opens her up, parting her and slipping in. Gaby's eyes flutter open to find him watching intently, flitting between her face and the heat squeezing around his fingers. He is hazy in the damp, the white hot mist, his lashes spiking in the wet. Seeing Illya dishevelled is a treat, something she gets to keep for herself. Since Rome, it has thrilled her. Since she'd woken up to a mottled white sky and Illya's muddied face, fingers on her cheek, she has been soft for the sight. With a surge of fondness, Gaby kisses and nips at his wounded lip. He hisses, bites her back, just at the join of her shoulder and her neck. Watery red streaks from the nick on his lip and down her chest, washing away.  

“Sorry,” she echoes sweetly, and Illya huffs. She grasps for purchase around his neck and nuzzles into him, climbing up to sink back down onto his fingers. With the grind down his stomach to provoke him, Illya grips her hard and lines himself up. Gaby clings on and sighs with relief as he slips into her where she’s hot and spread open.  

Illya’s rumbling groan buzzes over her ear and bounds off the tiles.  

When Gaby's eyes close and his mouth is on hers, he becomes the whole world. Sight and sound and touch, taste and scent, rising from his chest. Heat where he touches her. Ice where she brushes against the ceramic. The return of both huge hands to her thighs to thrust upwards are demanding and tender both, holding her steady and pressing in close, sealing the gap between them. She doesn’t have enough hands to touch him where she wants to. So Gaby settles for making a fist in the back of his wet hair, for smoothing between his shoulder blades, nails digging in when he drives a little too deep, a little too fast.  

He lets up when she does that.  

Sometimes she wishes he wouldn’t.  

He rests his forehead on the tiles and pulses his hips slower. He does this when he’s close. He’s breathing hard, forcibly steady. The sound is hers too, to keep. He rarely loses his breath anywhere else.

Gaby pulls him to her by the hair and kisses his cheeks, the tip of his nose, and she lets him take his time. The movement of him inside her is a tight push, a slow throb that has her lose track when he meets her perfectly, makes her strong legs weaken. Gaby pats his shoulder urgently and nods, lips parted and searching for him. His lips brush hers briefly, and he knows what it means.   

Illya shifts her in his grip to find his rhythm. The hot water glides down his back and Gaby’s hand follows it down the dip of his spine where he's sensitive, and which often makes him jump. He buries his face in her hair and his moan is open, her name falling out between the kisses laid under her ear, into the crook of her neck, and with it the soft plane of his jaw slides over hers. Gaby runs her fingers over him there, knowing that he’ll be rough again by noon.  

He grazes that same plush spot again, and again, and Gaby shudders out a cut-off cry, caught in her throat for losing her breath. She leans on him heavily, has him go on and on until she has to reach between them to touch herself. Illya’s hand slides up from her thigh to meet her there too.  

“No! Stay there, don’t— don’t move. Illya… Illya. Mein Gott—”  

But Illya’s fingertips bruise her thighs instead, vise-like, and he wraps her up, pulls her off the tiles to hold her in his arms.  

Gaby hisses for the new pressure, completely at mercy to his hips as he lifts her with every pulse. She tries to keep up with him until the peak is in sight, and every muscle in her body aches. It builds and tightens until the hot release that washes through her has her going limp in his grip, throbbing around him. Illya feels it. He feels it so deeply he curses but he keeps going, even when her hand retreats from between her legs, too sensitive, to cling onto his shoulders again.

Illya stutters and quakes, grabs onto her like she’s all that keeps him afloat. Gaby hazily fears they’ll collapse, knees weak and muscles soft for the hot water and the thrum of pressure.  

But Illya’s hand flattens to the tiles, eyes squeezed shut and mouth falling open. She holds him tight as he buries himself into her neck and he comes with a shout, groaning so deep it reverberates through her chest. He tries to steady her against the wall and she prepares to be dropped, to slip down into the bath with him in a pile. But although his hips are shuddering and his chest is heaving, he still holds her like there’s a cliff below them, and he won’t let go. 

Gaby mouths over his ear, “Alles OK?”  

He nods and nods, catching his breath. The small kiss he pushes to her pulse point is enough. His relieved sigh ghosts over her, and he presses another there to seal it.  

“I said don’t move,” she murmurs. It comes out through a laugh, still coming down from her high.  

Illya nods again. “Sorry.”  

With a last, lazy kiss he pats her hip and gentles her down to her own feet, sliding her down his body. The water patters his side and Illya steps into it, rinsing his face and chest.  

When he feels Gaby ogling him he turns her around, walks her backwards into the stream with him. He threads through her hair with his fingers, massaging softly. It's tired, strained, as if he has just woken up, “And what is your excuse?”  

Gaby peers up over her shoulder. “Pardon?”  

“For your absence this morning.”  

She hums. “Plumbing emergency. Overwhelming, really. I had you come over to fix it.”

"Mr. Waverly will believe you cannot fix a burst pipe?"

Gaby shrugs. "He believes that I would ask you to. And that you, so proud and so smug for being asked, would do it for me."

Illya's smile is gentle as he works down her body, rubbing her arms to wash and warm them, kneading into her shivery waist. Frowning for her goosebumps, he tugs her further back into the stream and into his chest, hiding her from the cold air. The slight hair on his abdomen tickles her shoulder blades.

“And for dinner?” 

“Take me out,” Gaby says through a yawn, and he hums his assent into her crown. Something fluttery grazes her ribs from the inside. “No,” she hurries, covering his hands working all over her. Knowing him, he might immediately lift her out of the bath and usher her straight into town on such a demand. Sometimes she thinks that if she asked for a five course dinner in Monaco he would see to it only a staunch little nod.

But tonight she wants to sit with him at her kitchen table. She wants his strange Russian favourites, his simple comfort foods, and to curl up on the couch with him afterwards, toes tucked under his thigh, a book in her hand and a white rook in his.

Sometimes that's all she wants. And it is dizzying, all the time, to know that this is something she can have. Something she can keep for herself.

“No. You choose. Whatever you want, Illya.”  

“You want me to cook.” 

“I’ll help.” 

Illya hums, unconvinced, and presses closer behind her. The wrap of his strong arms is another comfort, a safe and secure thing. Gaby closes her eyes, leans back against his chest, and she sways gently, taking him with her. He is likely close to falling asleep too.

“Time to go to work," he murmurs, so deep she feels it.

“Hm.” 

Illya turns her to face him. His shoulders block the water, broad and full. Another plus to the vastness of him, something she can't imagine going without. Dripping, he waits for her refusal.  

Gaby winds a hand around his neck and into his hair, ruffles him there. There are plenty more mornings like this to be had.

“Time for work,” she relents softly, and reaches behind him to turn off the shower.  

  


End file.
